Operation Black Box
by MorsTactica
Summary: After only transmitting to Core Prime for mere minutes a spy satellite lost all contact and crashed into Pikas City, its Black Box still intact. A lone Core commander is sent to recover the data, but he finds out more than he ever expected First FanFic.


Start/Mission log: T34 Operation "Black Box"

Mission: T34 "Black Box"

Location: In the ocean near Pikas city, planet 2876, Expelilion system

Date: May 24 4000 P.W.I. (Post War Initiation)

Unit: Commander 0137

It was early. The commander was just being woken up by the Valkerie class air transport's pattern informing him that the satellite wreckage was now within one kilometer. Commander 0137 hadn't truly slept since The Transfer happened, two years before the Arm started a true galactic war. At that time he was merely a Core Marine, His name part of a long list of humans to be Patterned and Nanolathed into machines of war. But that is a story for a later date. The Commander had been in a "Stasis" used to keep units/commanders from going insane from the boring un-eventfulness experienced during extended periods of transport/ space travel, filled with "dreams" consisting of anything from old Earth-time movies, in-stasis training/ mission evaluations, even battle simulations and unit designers for the commanders. No time went to waste in the Core.

The Commander opened a link between himself and the forward external cameras of the Valkerie to view His fleet in motion. Three Warlord main battle Destroyers, Five missile frigates, Two shredder Anti-air Ships, Four Executioner class Cruisers, 5 Searcher class Scouting ships, and 10 Envoy Sea-transports filled with "All the units needed for this operation". The commander quickly checked his nanolathe's available designs. "Great, nearly everything useful unavailable again!" the Commander thought to himself. The Commander switched on the Valkerie's comm system ordering all ships to full stop. His Valkerie lurched to a stop, hovering in the middle of the battle formation. The commander turned his attention back to the video feed searching the coast of Pikas City for a good landing area for his troops near the remains of the city's port. Zooming in to 10x magnification on the right side of the port he saw something troubling. About every 50 feet there was an Arm Guardian artillery emplacements along with hovercraft tanks and mobile missile launcher hovercraft just waiting to tear his troop transports to shreds, Even worse on the left side he saw heavy laser turrets, and some sort of new Arm heavy plasma turret battery. Deciding that he didn't want to risk all of his warlords taking down one area he instructed the missile frigates to get just close enough to attack the guardians while ordering the cruisers to handle the Arm hovercraft, the warlords moving up with them to destroy the guardians and otherwise wreak havoc upon the arm forces. Two hours later all of the gun emplacements were gone and the warlords' artillery cannons were "aiding" the Arm's hasty retreat further south into the remains of what was left of the city. In the battle the commander had lost A warlord to a surprise ambush by three Arm battleships also sinking them in the process, Three cruisers to torpedo bombers, that then where taken out by the shredders and one missile frigate that had drifted within range of the plasma battery.

The commander ordered all remaining ships into the port, the Envoys unloading their precious cargo which included 50 Goliath heavy main battle tanks, 15 diplomat mobile missile launching platforms, two radar trucks, two Scrambler class radar jammers, and 6 Adv construction vehicles. The last units mentioned being the most vital to the mission as they were only units that could retrieve the data from the black box located within the wreckage of the satellite. The commander himself ordering the Valkerie to land only after he had the Goliaths patrolling the edge of Pikas he controlled. The commander immediately ordered his adv construction vehicles build him 10 toaster pop up heavy artillery cannons for base defense. And happily discovered that Core Command had allowed him access to the nanolathe plans for a aircraft plant. Quickly building one he had on Fink class air scout plus one Avenger class fighter and one Shadow class operational base of operations. He sent out his fink to find the crater with its escorts, and find it they did. Come back they did not. The commander came to the conclusion that it was shot down by a simple missile turret, the fighter then took out 3 gunships before going down directly into an Arm K-bot lab. The bomber took out nearly 10 laser turrets before going down into the ocean. The commander quickly mobilized all of his land combat units and had five more fighters and bombers in the air before laying siege to the defenses around the wreckage.

At first the battle was going rather easy but then the plasma battery started to open fire. After that chaos broke out. That weapon was obviously a mere prototype because it only fired about 20 times a minute and killed more Arm than core. They encountered heavy resistance including 50 hovertanks 20 land defense turrets and about 20 gunships.

The fighters took out the gunships but all but one was taken down. The bombers ended up sacrificing themselves to take out some land factories and hovercraft platforms that were fueling the fight. All of the diplomats died from a gunship ambush and a mere 7 goliaths survived. The plasma cannon exploded 30 minutes in the battle from overheating or some other reason, exact cause still unknown today.

What is most important though is the information in the black box recovered by the ACV 87145. The video showed something that scared, infuriated, and also confused the commander. Arm cities and military bases were located in various places on the planet; he even saw a completely civilian city full of humans. But what bothered him most of all what that he vaguely remembered the city of humans! That couldn't be right. He had everything he had experienced since The Patterning was stored in his memory banks, as well as most he had experienced in his organic body before that. He would later research the planet and find out why, but… That's a story for another day.


End file.
